US Kidnapper and Rapist Commits Suicide

A coroner in Ohio says the man who held three women captive for more than a decade committed suicide in prison.

Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak said Wednesday convicted rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro used a bed sheet to hang himself.

Prison officials say the 53-year-old Castro was found in his prison cell late Tuesday. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Castro was arrested in May after one of his captives escaped from his Cleveland home and ran to neighbors for help. Castro kidnapped the women separately between 2002 and 2004, and raped them repeatedly during their captivity. One of the women, Amanda Berry, gave birth to a daughter.

Castro pled guilty last month to more than 900 criminal charges, including kidnapping, rape, and the murder of an unborn child one of the women was carrying.

Castro was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus 1,000 years, in exchange for prosecutors dropping the threat of a death sentence.